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Brussels (pte020/21.06.2005/10:41) - The Court of First Instance President Bo Vesterdorf from the European Union's second-highest court has proposed a change in judges in the Microsoft Corp. http://www.microsoft.com antitrust case after the current head judge, Judge Hubert Legal, was criticised for writing an article about the case.
Vesterdorf's proposed change came in the form of a one-paragraph letter that was circulated to all parties involved in the case, and suggested that Legal be removed as head judge and Vesterdorf himself preside over the case.
Microsoft has been summoned to court based on an ongoing case that cites the software company's abuse of its dominance in the EU market arena. Microsift was fined 497 million euros in 2004 and ordered to change its approach to business.
Until now Judge Legal was heading the five-judge panel on the case in Luxembourg. The article he wrote about the Microsoft case appeared in the French magazine Concurrences at the beginning of June. Some court members are wondering why he wrote it at all. About this, Legal said: "It is an attempt to make vivid for the academics a theoretical, intellectual problem which we have to face in the future."
"There was no criticism intended of Bo Vesterdorf in particular and no criticism intended for the case law of the Court of First Instance or for the court itself," Legal added.
It is not yet known what effect the change of judges and panel will have on the outcome. Legal, who is the judge most versed in the case, expected to have it complete by 2006, a quick ruling for EU court standards.
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